


In time everything will be alright

by Aisfor



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Bughead Secret Santa, F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-26
Updated: 2017-12-26
Packaged: 2019-02-22 03:01:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,942
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13157859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aisfor/pseuds/Aisfor
Summary: His phone lights up.“It’s ok.” He doubts she really thinks so.A heartbeat thuds in his chest and then, “Thank you for mine.”His fingers tap a silent message across the keypad, never fulling touching the screen before he replies, “It’s ok.”He wants to say more.(OR post Christmas gifts, Jughead sends Betty a text to thank her and a lot of thinking ensues)





	In time everything will be alright

**Author's Note:**

> This is my Bughead Secret Santa gift for @fyeahbvghead (hopefully you liked it) and that the rest of you like this little thing I came up with as well! I don't usually do stuff that's in keeping with what happens in the show but I suppose this sort of does but is definitely diverging off of that and going somewhere else! I hope you enjoy it anyway! 
> 
> Title comes from In Time by Robbie Robb 
> 
> The song within the fic is Runnin' (Lose It All) by Naughty Boy ft. Beyoncé, Arrow Benjamin

_These four lonely walls have changed the way I feel_  
_The way I feel_  
 _I'm standing still_  
 _And nothing else matters now, you're not here_

Jughead waits until FP has left for the evening, before shutting himself into his bedroom for the night. He’d made a point of asking where to, because he couldn’t help his amateur sleuth nature. But was quickly rebuffed with a warning look of narrowed eyes and a raised eyebrow, followed by the sound of the trailer door shutting. Causing the walls of the rectangular aluminum box to shake ferociously and the haphazard aerial on top of the television to come tumbling down, leaving him alone with his thoughts and a gleaming typewriter.

 

He pulls his phone out the back pocket of his jeans, the cool metal itches his skin. He flicks through until he finds her name and even just the sight of it makes his heart squeeze, like a Boa Constrictor tightening its grip on their prey.

 

He almost laughs at the analogy.

 

Jughead then spends a good half an hour devising the text and he wonders when their ability to communicate so effectively had got lost.  

 

His efforts result in a text that says, _“Hey, just texting to say thank you for my gift. I hope that’s ok.”_

 

He realises that it’s definitely not ok. Because there was nothing about the situation they found themselves in, that was ok. It was supposed to be nothing like any other Christmas he’s ever had. It was supposed to be a happy one. One where they could open their gifts together. Share kisses by the fire and fill the holiday with new memories far superior to what he’d experienced as a child.

 

He also realises that the reason they’re not doing all of those things, is him. All the events that have led him to where he now finds himself. Believing he could fix what is broken and keep her from the line of fire. _Until it sticks_. But he doesn’t really want it to stick. He’s just gotten good at pushing people away, knowing exactly what to say to ensure that he always ends up this way, alone.

 

He wants to squeeze his eyes tight and make time to go backwards. Take back what he’s done wrong. Because he tells himself he’s proud of who he is now, but he’s not even sure he believes it. The words taste bad in his mouth.

 

His phone lights up.

 

 _“It’s ok.”_ He doubts she really thinks so.

 

A heartbeat thuds in his chest and then, _“Thank you for mine.”_

 

His fingers tap a silent message across the keypad, never fulling touching the screen before he replies, _“It’s ok.”_

 

He wants to say more.

 

The dots appear signalling she’s typing. They disappear as quickly as he notices their presence and he’s never felt lonelier.

 

He waits five minutes. They don’t come back.

 

He feels like a child wanting to stay up on Christmas Eve, just in case they get a glimpse of Father Christmas.

 

A memory flashes through his mind of his younger self believing he’s heard the big stout man with the white beard, instead finding FP crashed over the coffee table aa a bottle of vodka trickled onto the already stained rug.

 

Jughead shakes his head, in an effort to rid himself of the residual pain. He pushes his phone onto the nightstand, reaching across to flick the crooked lamp off descending into darkness as he shrugs underneath the cold sheets. A spring digs between two ribs. He rolls, closing his eyes as the dots flit across his eyelids. Mocking him. The typewriter glints at him under the moonlight peeking through his hastily closed curtains. Sleep doesn’t come easy; tears sting his tired eyes as the sour taste in his mouth becomes almost unbearable.

_Memories turn to dust_ _  
Please don't bury us, I got you_

Jughead wakes again when the sky is still dark and the moon sits high and proud looking down, like it’s judging him and he wouldn’t be surprised if it actually was. He looks to the pillow on his left, where her head had been not so long ago. He remembers the way that very moon had cast a silver glow against the blonde strands fanned out against the grey cotton, making her appear ethereal. _His_ angel, that came into his life and showed him what it really felt like to be loved, to be wanted and desired.

 

He wonders if it was all a dream. But he knows, in reality he has a habit of convincing himself he doesn’t deserve to be loved, wanted or desired. He has the urge to punch himself in the side of the head.

 

He thinks back to the time she let go to protect him, just like he had. It all comes back to their communication. Through the lack of it, they’d taken decisions away from each other that weren’t theirs to make. That through the domino effect of bad events and their efforts to protect each other from all these things that Riverdale has thrown at them, they have both become the ultimate source of the pain. Leaving a hole in their chests, empty without each other.

 

In a past life, he would have laughed at himself. Thinking that he can’t survive without someone else. That he needed someone else. But this version of himself knew the truth. They just fit together. Without her it was like phantom limb pain blinding him, like his right arm was cut off at the shoulder and he’d never really been much good at using his left hand.

 

He doesn’t want to live this way.

 

He wonders if she feels the same.

 

Unconsciously, he rolls to sit on the edge of his bed, to pick up his phone. Large hands rubbing over the tired contours of his face as his eyes adjust to the darkness of the room. He swipes to unlock his phone, finding the previous conversation from a few hours before and without hesitation this time types, _“I don’t want us to be just old memories.”_

 

He doesn’t want her to be in the past.

 

 _Ain't runnin' from myself no more_ _  
I'm ready to face it all_

 

The thought strikes him, as the small tick shows up indicating the text has been delivered, that it’d be naïve to assume that it will be how it was before. Because they’re not the same people anymore. Nerves eat away at his stomach as he suddenly feels the desire to google how to take back a text that has already been sent.

 

His second plan occurs to him minutes later and involves climbing into her window, then stealing the phone so she never has to see what he’s said. He’s got one shoe already on when his brain reminds him of how ridiculous the idea truly is.

 

He takes the shoe off and kicks it against the already battered wall.

 

His third plan entails calling the phone company requesting they retract the message, turn her phone off, stop her getting any reception, something, anything that will stop her receiving the message. He’s searching for the number when the rational side of his brain gives him jolt, rattling against his skull and he throws his phone back on the bed, returning to pacing the lengths of his room.

 

He knows the trait of self-doubt instilled into him from a young age is messing with him again. Like the voice some people ( _not him_ ) get, telling them they probably shouldn’t eat that second slice of chocolate cake. This voice _(his voice)_ tells him he’s not worth it, like the final prong in a three pronged attack of his self-conscious on the lucid parts of his brain.

 

But then there’s a second voice.

 

It sounds angelic, feminine and beautiful. It’s _her_. Her telling him that he _is_ worth it. That he is not what he has done. But instead is what he will do.

 

He’s stood in the middle of his room, fingers scrunched tight like he’s holding onto her voice with all his might, when his phone lights up and his stomach lurches.

 

_“Meet me at the place.”_

 

He’s out the door in under a minute.

_Ain't runnin' from myself no more_ _  
Together we'll win it all_

That’s how the end up on a bench, the bench they call _their bench_ , perfectly divided between the North and the South of Riverdale. The bench they discovered as children. The dark wood they sat upon many times over. The wood that painted too long ago where the rot was now beginning to set in, reminiscent of how the Southside had begun to infest the North, slowly consuming it.

 

This place that they called _their own._ It was like night and day, action and reaction, Betty and Jughead, different in so many ways, yet so inextricably linked that there can’t be one without the other.

 

It’s here, as their legs swung in the wind too short to touch the ground, that they discussed their dreams. Then as they grew and their feet found the gravel, it’s where they confided in each other their hopes and eventually their failures. It’s where they would intertwine their freezing hands, both scrunching their eyes so tight that they could see splotches of light bursting behind their eyelids and make wishes.

 

Wishes for the past, erasing unwanted memories. Wishes for the present, that they could live in the world of bursts of light, wind whistling around their ears and fingers turning white from each other’s grip for just a little while longer. Then wishes for the future, that no matter what they’ll always have each other.

 

He arrives second, finding her already perched on the edge of the ice covered wood. Her coat billowing in the cool wind of winter, flashing the leg of her Christmas themed pyjamas under the street lamp. She smiles slightly, genuinely towards him as he takes the seat next to her. The cold rotting wood stinging the skin of his thighs red through his jeans. She knits their fingers together like they did as children, turning to catch his eye with a slight nod of her head, in the way that only he ever understands as both their eyes slip closed and squeeze tight.

 

“What are you wishing for this time?” She whispers, into the night air only barely audible over the wind whipping around his ears.

 

He gives her hand a squeeze, as flashes of light erupt in front of his eyes. Then recites the stock response that he told her every time, “I can’t tell you or it won’t come true.”

 

Betty laughs a little. The sound makes the corners of his mouth turn upwards and he feels five years old again.  

 

“Do you ever still wish that when you close your eyes, you could live in that world forever?”

 

“All the time.” He replies, truthfully.

 

“Can we…just for a little while?”

 

He squeezes her hand. “Just for a little while.” Her fingernails dig into the back of his hand, but he doesn’t care

 

 “Together?”

 

 “Together.” He wouldn’t have it any other way.

 

“Will you still be here when I open my eyes?” She asks, shyly. He wonders if she thinks he’s going to disappear into thin air, before her very eyes.

 

He brings their linked hands to his lips, placing a kiss against her rapidly cooling skin.

 

“Always.” Because even though they’re forever changed as people, it doesn’t mean their love for one another will fade.

 

So together, under the cover of darkness, they watch the lights and wish for the future.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I'm on tumblr - aisforr.tumblr.com
> 
> I put the bit about chocolate cake in because I ate two pieces yesterday. I have no regrets.


End file.
